


One (A Stranger Things Fanfiction)

by Elinor_Nobody



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Demogorgon - Freeform, Multi, Schizophrenia, Siblings, host - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 16:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elinor_Nobody/pseuds/Elinor_Nobody
Summary: Eleven is now seventeen years old, and over the years, she has managed to make contact with most of her siblings. One night, her oldest sister, the elusive One, appears in Will's house and gives him something that he has always wanted, but it comes with a price.This story has been written as prose.





	1. Chapter One - Eleven's Nighttime Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I initially made Eleven and the others seventeen because I thought it would take me a long time to finish this story, and even longer to post it. But then I realized that in Season Three (which airs tomorrow), they might say something about Eleven's siblings that contradicts what I have written here (about their names, genders, powers, and whether they are alive or dead). Right now, this story is about what might happen someday, but as soon as they say something on the show about Eleven's siblings, or if they defeat the Upside-Down for good before they turn seventeen, this will become an AU (it will eventually become an AU anyway). This story is not finished yet, but I will post what I have so far, and if it gets a favourable response, I may post more chapters in the future. It may be a long time before I can see Season Three or rewatch Seasons One and Two. Also, I really hope I don't accidentally offend anyone! If I do, I'm sorry!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: laboratories, abuse, lost siblings, the Cold War, gender, transphobia, anxiety, panic attacks, trauma, blood, fire, explosions, death, animal death, being lost, being trapped, parents, power, broken bones, sickness, hospitals, racism, fear, anger, pain, malnutrition, dehydration, comas, awareness in comas, screams, multiple personalities, schizophrenia, hindered communication, teenage parenthood, destroyed flowers... (I may add more later, and if I missed yours, I'm sorry!)

Eleven had spent most of her life in a laboratory, and most of the time since escaping had been spent in hiding. But now, at the age of seventeen, she had finally found some normalcy in life, living in a house with a father, a stepmother, and a stepbrother.  
As Eleven lay in her new bedroom (the one that had, until recently, belonged to Will's older brother, who was now married and out of the house), she closed her eyes and turned up the static on the radio in order to tune out any nightly noise. Then, using her powers, she said good night to her biological mother, and to the siblings she had been able to contact over the years. She even said goodnight to Eight, despite the tension that had existed between them since the events of not too long ago, which had involved Eight going mad with power and had ended with Eight faking her death.  
Biologically, Eleven was an only child, but she had spent her childhood in a research facility as a lab rat. She had called the lead scientist Papa, even though this man was not her biological father. She was not the only child who had been raised in this way. In her earliest childhood memories, Eight had been with her. But Eight had been the first one to escape, leaving Eleven alone for years.  
Eight had also been the first one Eleven had reunited with after escaping herself. Since then, she had committed herself to finding her other so-called siblings. She had expected there to be hundreds of them, considering that her tattoo had three digits, but as far as she could tell, she was the second youngest of only twelve. Also, her siblings had been raised in pairs, cut off from all of the others: One with Four, Two with Five, Three with Six, Seven with Ten, Eight with Eleven, and Nine with Twelve.  
After Eight, whose powers involved projecting illusions into people's minds, the next two to escape had been Two and Five, whose real names were Emmeline and Jody. Two's powers involved persuading people to do anything that she wanted them to do, and Five had the ability to change people's moods to whatever she wanted them to be. Working together, they were unstoppable, and it helped that they were both beautiful girls. They'd made it all the way to Canada, where they'd managed to acquire a house, and were now living peacefully.  
Three, or Kieran, whose powers were enhanced tracking abilities, super speed, and super strength, had been sent to bring them back, but he'd simply taken that opportunity to escape himself. He'd followed Two and Five to Canada and moved in with them.  
Six had been the next one to escape. Six's powers were shape-shifting and the ability to learn any language in seconds. Naturally, Six had been sent to Russia as a spy, but had disappeared, taken on the form of a beautiful woman, and was now married. One thing that Eleven didn't understand was that her research had indicated that Six was a boy named Alexander, but when she reached out with her powers, she found the mind of a girl, who wanted to be called by the female pronouns. Apparently, Six had been born with a male body and a female brain. Eleven had never heard of such a thing. But then again, she had spent most of her life cut off from the rest of humanity. Perhaps this sort of thing happened far more often than she would have thought. Eleven had always honoured Six's request that she use the female pronouns on her.  
Seven and Ten, or Patrick and Charles, had also escaped together, and they were currently on the run in Mexico. Seven could phase, meaning that he could walk through walls. Ten could cast unbreakable force fields, and nothing could get through them except for Seven. No matter how many times Eleven told them that it was safe to come back to the United States, they never believed her. Ten had never even met Nine, his identical twin brother.  
Eleven had been the last one to escape. Nine and Twelve, or David and Daniel, had been the only ones left inside when the lab was finally raided. They'd both immediately been put into foster care upon being found. Fortunately, they had been allowed to stay together. Unfortunately, their foster parents were mean to them. As soon as Nine was old enough to live on his own, he'd left and he'd taken Twelve with him. However, that meant that Nine had been accused of kidnapping his brother. Nine and Twelve were two of the few siblings that Eleven had actually met in person. She had been the one to guide them to her new father's old cabin, where she herself had once been hidden. One lucky thing was that Nine's power was the ability to generate and conduct electricity, so that saved them from having to pay for it. Even now, Twelve refused to tell Eleven what his power was, and he'd even gone so far as to make her promise that she would never try to research it, and to Eleven, a promise was sacred.  
Four, sadly, was dead.  
Eleven had had to do research on him in the lab where they had all been raised. Apparently, Four's real name had been Benjamin, and he'd had the ability to change the ambient temperature and purify the air in the immediate area. He'd been sent into the Upside Down shortly after Eleven had accidentally opened the door. Apparently, Papa had thought that Four could raise the temperature and detoxify the air of the whole Upside Down, the idea being that it could be made livable for humans, who would then colonize it and perhaps even use it as a giant nuclear bomb shelter. Of course, as soon as Four had been sent in, he'd been devoured by Demogorgons.  
But the single most elusive sibling was One.  
Eleven had managed to do some research on One. Apparently, One, or Caroline, was Two's twin sister, but their powers were not similar in the least.  
From what Eleven could tell, One might even be the only sibling more powerful than Eleven herself.  
According to her research, One could heal any injury or illness instantly, but more importantly than that, she could conjure fire and turn herself invisible, and there was reason to believe that she might have been on the verge of developing even more powers.  
She would almost certainly be invaluable in a fight against the Demogorgons.  
Unfortunately, so far, she had been less than cooperative.  
Whenever Eleven reached out to her with her mind, not only was she never able to see One clearly enough to even tell what she looked like, but One always flat-out refused to communicate with her. Over and over, she had screamed at Eleven to go away.  
Why in the world would she refuse Eleven's attempts to connect?  
Also, when she used her mind to seek One out, sometimes she found her in the normal world, and sometimes she found her in the Upside Down.  
In Eleven's experience, it was very difficult to get to or escape from the Upside Down, especially after all the years that she had spent sealing up the various portals. How was it that One could come and go as she pleased?  
Eleven had actually long suspected that One was not merely finding openings that Eleven had missed, but tearing new ones herself. If that was the case, then Eleven needed to find a way to stop her, before she put more people in danger.  
Eleven knew that, as long as new holes were being torn, her new step-brother, Will, would never be safe, nor would her long-time boyfriend, Mike, or their friends, Dustin and Lucas.


	2. Chapter Two - Will's Nighttime Thoughts

Will hated this time of year.  
There had been a time when Halloween had been his favourite holiday. But now, it was simply the time of year when horrible things happened to him.  
First, he had spent a nightmarish week trapped in the Upside Down, which was an experience from which he doubted he would ever fully recover.  
A year later, he had become trapped inside his own mind as the Mind Flayer itself took over his body.  
Bad things did not happen to him every year, and sometimes the Upside Down would attack at other times in the year. But this was the time that he would always associate with that terrifying place and the attacks that always seemed centred around him.  
In some ways, he was glad that his mother had married Hopper. That meant that Eleven was now down the hall from him (in the room that had been Jonathan’s until he’d recently married Nancy and moved out). She could kill Demogorgons with little more than a thought. However, he found her haircut and her tattoo incredibly disturbing. She’d recently buzzed off all of her hair again (although, at seventeen, nobody would mistake her for a boy now), and that just brought back too many unpleasant memories for Will.  
There was one experience which Will had never been able to tell anyone about, something that had occurred during his week trapped in the Upside Down.

At that point, he’d been trapped in trapped in the Upside Down for four days. He was starving, parched, cold, lonely, and terrified out of his mind. So far, he’d done well at hiding from the lone Demogorgon that hunted him relentlessly, but with no food or water, his energy was waning, and the cold and the dark didn’t help much.  
Late in the afternoon, he finally collapsed.  
Suddenly, there was a girl, a young woman, no more than twenty, hovering over him. Her hair had been buzzed off, and she was dressed only in a hospital gown.  
“Four?” she asked hopefully.  
She touched his cheek, and suddenly, he felt his strength and energy returning. He was still hungry and thirsty, but he no longer felt as if he was dying.  
“How did you do that?” Will asked. “Wait a minute! You’re bleeding!” he exclaimed noticing the blood trickling down from her left nostril.  
The young woman wiped the blood from her face with her hand, and then looked at Will carefully. Then her face fell.  
“No…” she said sadly. “Not Four. Too young. Hair is too long. Eyes are wrong…”  
Will noticed that she had a very choppy way of speaking, as if it was an activity that was largely unfamiliar to her.  
“Who are you?” asked Will.  
In answer, she showed him the tattoo on her wrist.  
001.  
“How did you get here?” asked Will. “Where did you come from? Do you know how to get back?”  
Suddenly, he heard the roar of the Demogorgon off in the distance.  
“Come on!” said Will. “I know where we can hide!”  
He led her to the fort that he and his brother had built in the woods. As they hid there, they heard the Demogorgon’s rapidly approaching footsteps. Through a crack in the boards, Will could see the Demogorgon come to a stop not far from the fort.  
He really hoped that nothing would draw its attention to their hiding place.  
One suddenly made a move, as if she wanted to jump up and run for it, but Will grabbed her wrist and frantically shook his head. She reluctantly settled back down, but that small movement had been enough to get the Demogorgon’s attention. It slowly started to move towards the fort. Will fought the panic that was rising within him.  
But just then, Will heard the bleat of an unfamiliar animal that had also blundered into this terrible place, and the Demogorgon took off after the sound.  
“What were you doing?!” hissed Will when the monster had gone.  
In response, One simply said: “I could have killed it.”  
Will suddenly shuddered as he heard the dying cries of the poor, unfortunate animal that was now little more than the Demogorgon’s supper.  
“I hate this place!” said Will, tears springing to his eyes. “I want to go home!”  
One looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two, then finally, she said, “You are not Four, but I will help you. I can take you to Papa…” Suddenly, she trailed off.  
“You know a way to get home?!” asked Will, hopefully. “Where is it?”  
“A bad place…” said One, trailing off again.  
“Worse than here?” asked Will.  
One thought for a long moment, then finally said, “No.”  
“Then let’s go!” said Will.  
They ran on through the woods, eventually slowing down to save their energy.  
“Where are you taking me?” asked Will. “Are there any Demogorgons there?”  
“There were,” said One, “but I killed them.”  
Just as Will was wondering how such an obviously sickly person as One could possibly kill multiple Demogorgons, a Demogorgon burst out of the bushes and roared at them.  
But it was not the same Demogorgon that had been hunting Will.  
This one had darker flesh and a yellow streak across its face.  
“Run!” shouted One, pushing Will up the hill.  
Will ran, but turned around to see what was happening.  
One took on what almost looked like a karate stance, and she appeared to be trying unsuccessfully to light a lighter.  
Then the Demogorgon was upon her.  
One tilted her head back and met Will’s gaze.  
“Save yourself!” she shouted.  
Then the creature sank its many jaws into One’s neck, and One uttered a scream that would haunt Will’s nightmares for years to come.  
Then there was a fiery explosion.  
Will just barely managed to get over the hill in time. When he looked back, there were burning embers everywhere, but no sign of One or the Demogorgon.  
Will moved back to the spot where they had been, and while the air around the spot appeared to be a bit distorted, there was nothing to indicate that a girl or a monster had ever even been there.  
Not knowing what else to do, Will ran back the way he had come in order to attempt to communicate with his mother again.  
He wondered if he would ever be able to speak of what had just happened.  
He wondered if he would ever get home.

Will pulled himself out of these horrible memories, trying to remind himself that he was not in the Upside Down, but at home, in his warm bed, with his mother and stepfather just down the hall, his stepsister in the next room, and his best friend, Mike, asleep on his floor.


	3. Chapter Three - Mike's Nighttime Thoughts

Mike always felt guilty these days.  
There had been signs lately that another attack from the Upside Down was imminent, and Mike didn’t always know what to do or where to be.  
He wished that he could be in multiple places at once, so that he could protect everyone that he loved.  
The best that he could do was guard a different loved one each night.  
Sundays and Wednesdays, he guarded Will and Eleven, who were frequent targets for the Mind Flayer’s attacks. He always slept in Will’s room on these nights in order to reassure Hopper that he wasn’t doing anything inappropriate with Eleven.  
Mondays and Thursdays, he guarded Dustin, who was in the hospital, having recently taken a bad fall and broken every bone in his body. That would have been bad enough for a person with a healthy skeleton, but was especially bad for Dustin, who had cleidocranial dysplasia.  
Tuesdays and Fridays, he guarded his father and his younger sister. They didn’t always understand him, but they didn’t need to in order for him to love them. They were his family.  
He dreaded Saturdays, when he guarded his mother.  
Not too long ago, his mother had moved out of their house and moved in with her new boyfriend, who Mike despised. He still loved his mother and wanted to protect her, but being around her now was a chore, because her new boyfriend was such a creep.  
Honestly, Mike wouldn’t have minded seeing this guy get eaten by a Demogorgon.  
He wished that he could protect Lucas too. The problem was that he didn’t know where Lucas was. Nobody did. He’d run away with that annoying girl, Max, sometime during the summer, and nobody had heard from them since. There were rumours swirling that Max was in a delicate condition, and that just gave Mike all the more reason to want to protect them, not just from Demogorgons, but from Max’s evil stepbrother, who was out hunting for them every day.  
Mike really wished that a Demogorgon would eat that guy.  
He supposed that he didn’t really need to worry about his older sister. She was still on her honeymoon with Will’s brother. He only hoped that they wouldn’t come back until the coming battle was over.  
Mike still felt guilty that he couldn’t guard everyone at once.  
Right now, he was guarding Will and Eleven, but that meant that he was leaving all of his other loved ones on their own, and he didn’t know what he would do if something happened to one of his loved ones while he was guarding another one.  
He imagined that Will had to be embarrassed about being guarded like this, but Mike knew that an embarrassed friend was better than a dead one. So, there he sat, on the floor at the foot of Will’s bed, struggling to keep his eyes open, with a knife in one hand and an acetylene torch in the other one.  
Suddenly, the wall began to ripple, which was a telltale sign that something was coming from the Upside Down. In a flash, Mike was on his feet, his weapons ready. He glanced at Will, who was struggling into an upright position, and then back at the wall.  
What came through the wall was not a Demogorgon, but a wild-eyed woman.  
She was dressed only in a hospital gown, which, like her skin, was coated in mud and blood, both dried and fresh. Her long hair looked as if it had never been washed or even brushed. She locked eyes with Will, looked like she was trying to say something, and then she suddenly collapsed, unconscious, right on the spot where Mike had just been sitting.  
“It can’t be!” exclaimed Will.  
“Do you know her?” asked Mike.  
Before Will could answer, the wall rippled again, and this time, a Demogorgon came through. It roared, and then appeared to zero in on Will. Mike jumped onto the bed and assumed a protective stance.  
“You want him?! You’re going to have to get through me!” shouted Mike.  
The Demogorgon then grabbed Mike, and Mike felt many, many sharp teeth sink themselves into his neck.  
“No!” screamed Will.


	4. Chapter Four - One Makes Herself Known

When Eleven rushed into the room and saw her love being mauled by a Demogorgon, her first instinct was to use her powers to cause the Demogorgon’s head to explode. An instant later, Will’s entire bedroom was covered with Demogorgon gunk. Mike collapsed right on top of Will, convulsing violently and gushing arterial blood.  
Eleven used her telekinesis to close Mike’s wounds and stop the bleeding, but she knew that, as soon as she let go, the wounds would just open themselves up again. She could do nothing to speed their healing.  
At the same time, she knew that the blood would attract more Demogorgons. So, without letting go of Mike, she also used her powers to close up the rift in the wall before any more could get through.  
At that moment, Hopper rushed into the room, followed by Will’s mother, Joyce.  
“What’s going on in here?!” exclaimed Hopper.  
“Call an ambulance!” cried Eleven.  
“Will!” exclaimed Joyce. “Are you alright?!”  
Will was obviously lost in a panic attack.  
“What should I tell the paramedics?” asked Hopper. “Who is the ambulance for? Mike, Will, or that girl on the floor?”  
Eleven looked down and noticed the filthy young woman in the hospital gown for the first time, but did not allow herself to be distracted for long.  
“Hurry!” she exclaimed. “Mike is losing a lot of blood! He could die!”  
Hopper quickly rushed to the kitchen to comply.  
A short time later, two ambulances arrived; one for Mike, and one for the mysterious comatose girl.  
Unfortunately, no matter how much Eleven cried and pleaded, the paramedics would not allow her to ride in the ambulance with Mike. Ordinarily, she would have used her powers to force the paramedics to give her what she wanted, but fortunately, she remembered that the paramedics needed to treat Mike and drive him to the hospital, and that it would be better for him if she did not hurt them.  
She, Will, Hopper, and Joyce all piled into the car and followed behind the ambulances as closely as they could.  
Will was breathing normally again, but his eyes still had that vacant stare.  
Eleven, however, was growing more and more anxious. She really hoped that the paramedics were doing a competent job of closing Mike’s wounds. She vowed to herself that, if Mike died, those paramedics were going to pay.  
“What exactly happened?” asked Hopper.  
“There was a Demogorgon in Will’s room!” said Eleven. “I killed it!”  
She could see how disturbed her stepmother was by this news.  
“Wait,” said Hopper, “how did it get in Will’s room? Did it come in through that weak spot in Will’s wall? I thought you patched that up!”  
“I did!” said Eleven. “I patched it again and again! Something keeps tearing it open again, or someone…”  
Eleven suddenly thought about the young woman she had seen on Will’s bedroom floor, and about how One could come and go from the Upside Down as she pleased.  
Did that young woman tear open the hole in Will’s wall?  
Was this woman the elusive One?  
When they arrived at the hospital, they learned that Mike had been taken in for emergency surgery, and the mysterious woman was being cleaned up and examined.  
Mike was given a few dozen stitches and a blood transfusion, and the doctor declared that he would be fine, but would need to be kept for a couple of days for observation.  
The mysterious woman, on the other hand, did not receive such a positive prognosis. After she was cleaned up and given a fresh hospital gown, the doctors found that, even though she looked completely healthy on the outside, she was actually suffering from extreme malnutrition and dehydration, her organs were shutting down, and her blood pressure was almost impossibly low. Frankly, the doctors thought that the fact that she had been conscious and walking around just a few hours ago was nothing short of a miracle. They estimated that she would be dead within twenty-four hours.  
After that, Mike and the strange woman were put in the same hospital room. Luckily, it was just across the hall from Dustin’s room.  
Upon entering the room with her family, the first thing that Eleven did was rush to Mike’s side. His neck was heavily bandaged, and he was barely conscious, but his face lit up in a smile when he saw her.  
“Hey, El… Ow!” said Mike. “Ow! It hurts to talk!”  
“Then don’t talk!” said Eleven. Then she leaned down and kissed him.  
“Look!” exclaimed Will, suddenly.  
Eleven turned around and saw the light flickering above the mysterious woman’s bed.  
But this was no ordinary flickering. Over the years, they had all become fluent in Morse Code, and this fluency had saved each of their lives again and again, and right now, the light above the woman’s bed was flickering in the most recognizable pattern in all of Morse Code.  
S-O-S.  
S-O-S.  
S-O-S.  
Over and over again, the pattern repeated.  
Eleven moved over to her bed and turned over her wrist.  
Just as she’d suspected, there was the tattoo.  
001.  
“It’s her! It’s One!” exclaimed Eleven. “She’s trying to talk to us!”  
“But she’s in a coma!” said Hopper. “Is she even aware of what’s going on around her?!”  
A-W-A-R-E, came the reply.  
“But this is impossible!” exclaimed Will. “We’ve met before and… and… I mean… You’re dead! I saw you die!”  
N-O-T-D-E-A-D, said One.  
“But the Demogorgon, and… and the explosion!” stammered Will.  
Then, suddenly, One vanished.  
Eleven noticed that the air around where she had been was definitely distorted.  
“Where did she go?!” exclaimed Joyce. “She must be in the Upside-Down!”  
N-O, went the lights.  
“Then where are you?” asked Joyce.  
I-N-V-I-S-I…  
“Invisible?!” exclaimed Will, not even giving her a chance to finish. “Wait a minute, when I thought you were dead, you had really just turned invisible?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”  
C-O-M-A, replied One. N-O-W-A-Y-T-O-T-A-L-K.  
“But,” continued Will, “if you can turn invisible, then why didn’t you just turn us both invisible and hide us?”  
H-A-R-D-T-O-C-O-N-T-R-O-L, said One.  
Then she suddenly reappeared on the bed, and when she did, Eleven noticed that she was bleeding from both nostrils.  
“What are you and she talking about, Will?” asked Joyce.  
That’s when Will finally told his mother the whole story. He told her about meeting One during his week trapped in the Upside Down, about how she was looking for someone named Four who apparently looked just like him, about how he’d hidden her from the Demogorgon, about how she’d offered to lead him to safety, and about how she had been supposedly killed by a different Demogorgon. When he got to the end of this horrible story, he was in tears, and his mother was holding him as if he was seven rather than seventeen.  
Eleven wished that she’d had a mother like Joyce when she was growing up, but at the same time, she was also grateful to have Joyce for a stepmother now. After all, Joyce was just as attentive and affectionate with her as she was with Will, her natural child.  
I-A-M-S-O-S-O-R-R-Y-W-I-L-L, said One. I-A-M-S-O-S-O-R-R-Y-F-O-R-E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G…  
Eleven even noticed a tear running down from One’s left eye.  
Will sniffled, eased away from his mother, wiped the tears from his eyes, took a deep breath, and put on an uneasy smile.  
“It’s alright!” he insisted, although unconvincingly. “I’m alright, really, I am! So, One, what else can you do?”  
For a moment, nothing happened…  
…then One’s blanket burst into flame.  
Hopper tore the blanket off One’s bed and quickly stomped out the flames. But Eleven noticed that, despite the fact that she had just been covered in flames, One looked completely fine, and her hospital gown was not even singed.  
A fresh trickle of blood oozed its way from One’s left nostril.  
“Okay…” said Hopper. “So, she can turn invisible, and she can set things on fire. What else can you do? And this time, don’t show us! Just tell us!”  
S-O-R-R-Y, said One. H-E-A-L.  
Suddenly, Eleven, feeling like an idiot, remembered her badly hurt boyfriend in the very next bed.  
“One,” said Eleven, “do you think you could heal my boyfriend, Mike, for me?”  
Y-E-S, said One. G-I-V-E-H-I-M-M-Y-H-A-N-D.  
Hopper went over to Mike’s bed and lifted him out of it.  
“Hey! What the…?! Ow! My throat!” croaked Mike.  
T-A-K-E-O-F-F-B-A-N-D-A-G-E-S, said One.  
Joyce started to fumble with the bandages around Mike’s neck, but Eleven used her powers to unwind the now blood-soaked bandages and throw them away.  
Seeing Mike’s neck like this made Eleven feel sick at the heart.  
Then she took Mike’s hand in hers, gave it a gently reassuring squeeze, and then placed it in One’s hand.  
In a matter of seconds, the wounds on Mike’s neck completely closed over, the swelling went down, and the stitches popped out one by one. By the time One had finished, there was nothing left of Mike’s wounds except for a very fine, barely noticeable network of thin, white scars around his neck.  
“That’s… That’s incredible!” exclaimed Mike, putting his hand to his throat. “What did you just do?!”  
Hopper set him down.  
H-E-A-L-E-D-W-O-U-N-D-S-A-N-D-S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S, said One, her nose still oozing blood freely.  
“Sickness?” said Mike. “I wasn’t sick.”  
I-N-F-E-C-T-I-O-N-I-N-B-L-O-O-D, said One. I-K-I-L-L-E-D-I-T.  
“Wait a second!” exclaimed Mike. “Are you telling me that they gave me a diseased blood transfusion?! Oh, no!”  
I-K-I-L-L-E-D-I-N-F-E-C-T-I-O-N, said One. Y-O-U-A-R-E-H-E-A-L-T-H-Y.  
“Oh! Okay, good!” said Mike, still looking uncertain. “Hey, if she can cure that, maybe she can heal Dustin’s broken bones!”  
“I don’t know if we should…” Hopper started to say.  
B-R-I-N-G-H-I-M, said One.  
“But how are we going to get him in here?” asked Hopper.  
“Leave it to me!” said Eleven.  
She walked out of the room and across the hall to Dustin’s room. With all of the bandages on his face, she had to look at his chart to make sure that it really was Dustin.  
He couldn’t talk, but his eyes lit up at the sight of her.  
Then she used her powers to lift him from the bed as gently as she could, trying to ignore his muffled exclamations of confusion, slowly floated him back across the hallway, and moved him as close to One as she could get.  
The problem now was trying to find an exposed patch of skin.  
“Dustin,” she said, “I need you to close your eyes.”  
Dustin hesitated, but complied, lowering his blackened eyelids.  
Then Eleven picked up One’s hand and placed it on one of Dustin’s eyes.  
Immediately, the blackness went out of Dustin’s eyes, but that was the only evidence that they had that it was working, since they couldn’t remove his bandages without hurting him.  
After a few minutes, Dustin suddenly started to scream.  
Not knowing what else to do, Eleven used her powers to rip away his bandages.  
“MAKE IT STOP!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!” screamed Dustin.  
Before Eleven could even do anything, Dustin knocked One’s hand away himself. As soon as he did, he stopped screaming.  
“Dustin!” exclaimed Mike. “Are you okay?!”  
“Actually,” said Dustin, catching his breath, “I feel… fine! I think I’m all healed! Um, Eleven, could you put me down, please?”  
Eleven reluctantly set Dustin on his feet.  
“Could someone please tell me what’s going on?” asked Dustin.  
“Right!” said Eleven. “Dustin, this is my sister, One, or Caroline. She’s been communicating with us in Morse code through the lights. She can heal illnesses and injuries, so we asked her to heal your broken bones.”  
A-N-D-I-D-I-D, said One, A-N-D-T-R-I-E-D-T-O-G-R-O-W-B-A-C-K-M-I-S-S-I-N-G-B-O-N-E-S.  
“Really?” said Dustin, feeling the spot where his collarbone would be if he’d had one. “Thank you, but I’m happy with just having the bones I’ve got healed.”  
S-O-T-I-R-E-D… said One. B-U-T-W-A-N-T-T-O-T-E-L-L-M-O-R-E…  
“Hang on!” said Eleven. “Everyone, I need you to be quiet for a few minutes.  
Everyone agreed. Eleven turned up the static on the radio that happened to be in the room and closed her eyes.

Eleven found herself face to face with One.  
She slowly approached One, remembering all the times over the years when she’d tried to contact her over the years and failed.  
“Sister…” said One.  
Then she rushed right over and hugged Eleven.  
“I am so sorry, Eleven!” she went on. “It is not your fault that Four is gone, and I know you will not take me back to Papa…”  
“So that’s why you wouldn’t talk to me before now?!” said Eleven. “You thought I lost Four, and you thought I was trying to take you back to Papa?!”  
“Now I know!” said One. “It was Papa’s fault! Papa made you open the door! Papa sent Four to the Dark-And-Cold!”  
“We call it the Upside-Down…” said Eleven.  
“And when I went home…” continued One. “Nobody was there! So you were not trying to bring me back!”  
“Of course not!” said Eleven. “Why would I want to bring anyone to that terrible place?!”  
Then One showed Eleven a variety of things from her life.

Apparently, One’s first power, and for a long time her only power, was her ability to heal, and for a long time, Papa had thought her the least powerful, and as a result, never treated her nicely. Papa had even gone so far as to deny her food and water for days at a time. Luckily, a side effect of One’s healing ability was that she did not require as much nutrition and hydration as most other people. The real anguish always came when Papa chose to punish her by taking out his anger on Four, the only person One had ever loved. He even said, again and again, that he did not like to hurt Four, because Four’s air-detoxifying powers were sure to come in handy in the inevitable event that the United States would someday be shrouded in nuclear fallout.  
Luckily, Four’s love for One never faltered, and they were the most inseparable pair of siblings in the whole laboratory.  
One was in her teens when she developed her ability to conjure fire.  
Two of Papa’s subordinates were dragging Four away for punishment, and another two were restraining One. One was screaming for Papa to let Four go, the rage clear in her voice, when suddenly, all four subordinates’ lab coats caught fire.  
Finally, Papa started treating her with a little bit of human decency.  
However, he did not really treat her with respect until a few years later, when she developed the ability to turn invisible.  
Finally, she had an ability that could be used against the Russians.  
Of course, One still had trouble controlling her new abilities.  
Then, finally, when One was about twenty, the door to the Upside Down was opened.  
Papa and his subordinates discovered quickly that the monsters of this frightening new world did not like the heat, so they decided to send Four in to raise the temperature and detoxify the air. One insisted (as well as she could with her choppy vocabulary) that she should be the one to go in. She could use her fire to destroy any monsters in this other world, and then Four would be able to safely detoxify it. However, they put One and Four to the test, and it was proven that Four’s temperature-altering abilities were still more powerful than One’s fire-conjuring. So, despite One’s objections, Four was sent in.  
As soon as they heard the Demogorgons’ roars and Four’s screams, One’s heart shattered into a million pieces, and in that moment, there was a terrible, fiery explosion in the lab.  
Later that night, One went through the door herself, wearing only her hospital gown.  
Too fueled by rage to even be scared, One used her fire to kill every Demogorgon that she encountered, and they were quite numerous in this dark and cold version of the laboratory in which she had been raised.  
She was determined to find Four, if he was still alive, which she knew was unlikely.  
She was also determined to kill everything in this dark world for taking him from her.  
The blood from her nose when she used her powers seemed to draw more Demogorgons to her all the time, which simply made it all the easier for her to kill them.  
After days of hunting and killing, she saw a boy who looked very much like Four.  
She used her powers to restore his energy.  
Unfortunately, she could see right away that this boy was not Four.  
But she didn’t care. She already liked him immensely, almost like another little brother, and she wanted to protect him and to save him. She tried to lead him to safety. Unfortunately, they were ambushed by another Demogorgon. She tried to kill this one as she had killed the others, but she was unable to conjure more than a spark, and the Demogorgon tackled her.  
As soon as it sank its teeth into her neck, she involuntarily caused another fiery explosion, and in slipping unconscious, also involuntarily turned invisible. Apparently, this power, which she found so difficult to control, was actually an adaptation for survival, keeping her hidden while she was unconscious, and no matter what she did, she could not turn visible again until she regained consciousness a week later, and by then, she had lost a lot of blood. Fortunately, her invisibility power also seemed to hide her scent from the Demogorgons.  
It would be years before she would be able to turn invisible and visible again at will while she was in one of these comas.  
It was not long after this that she discovered that she could get back to the normal world by burning holes in the walls at the weak spots. She burned one in a strange place where there were lots of rooms with desks, and as soon as she was back in the normal world, she found a room where there was a variety of medical supplies, and she ate all of the vitamins that she could find. She was delighted that she would never have to go back to the lab again, and she was even more delighted to discover that Will had found his way home.  
However, she was not done with the Upside Down.  
She referred to it in her mind as the Dark-And-Cold, because she had never heard it called anything else.  
When she went back in, she discovered that there were no Demogorgons left.  
Evidently, the one that had been chasing Will had been the last one.  
However, One soon found something new to fight:  
The Mind Flayer.  
Her flames had been sufficient for killing Demogorgons, but for some reason, they could not kill the Mind Flayer. The Mind Flayer was vulnerable to heat, just like everything in the Upside Down, but One could never make her fire hot enough to kill it.  
After months and months of battling the Mind Flayer, it finally struck her down, and she slipped into another week-long coma.  
When she woke up, she discovered many new Demogorgons running around, and she also discovered that all of the weak spots had been sealed.  
Of course, after a year of fighting the Mind Flayer, her powers had only gotten stronger, so it was not that difficult for her to tear new openings and re-weaken the weak spots.  
But she rarely ever left the Upside Down. She only ever left for two reasons: to get food and water, and to check on Will.  
And so this pattern went on. She would spend months fighting the Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer, which strengthened her powers while weakening her body, and then she would run out of energy and be struck down, slipping into a coma for a period of about a week, during which time another attack would be launched on the normal world.

“Only,” said One, finally, “I will not wake up this time. I went too far, and now my body is too weak. I want to kill that black thing, but I cannot do it alone. I think it would take two or three of us to kill it. I want to protect Will, and there is only one way now. I have one more power, but I can only use it once. Goodbye, sister.”  
Then she kissed Eleven on the forehead, and then she disappeared.

Eleven was brought back to the waking world by a scream.  
When she opened her eyes, she saw that One was sitting upright in bed, her eyes wide open, and with her right hand, she had a death-grip on Will’s right wrist.  
“Let go of my son!” shrieked Joyce, trying to separate them.  
“No, stop!” exclaimed Eleven. “I don’t know what she’s doing, but she told me that she’s doing this to protect Will!”  
An orange haze passed out of One and slowly moved into Will.  
Once the orange haze had completely moved into Will, One closed her eyes, released Will’s wrist, and flopped back down onto the bed.  
Hopper checked her pulse.  
“She’s dead!” he announced.  
As Will stood there, massaging the bruises on his right wrist, Eleven noticed something new on his left wrist.  
“Will!” she exclaimed. “Look!”  
Will turned over his left wrist, and there was a new tattoo there.  
001.  
Suddenly, the bruises on his other wrist started to disappear.  
“Will!” said Dustin. “I think that One just gave you her powers!”  
“Wow!” exclaimed Mike. “Go ahead! Try to set something on fire!”  
“Oh, no you don’t!” said Hopper. “Come on! We’re going home, right now, before anything else happens!”  
“Just one thing!” said Dustin. “How am I going to explain my healed bones to my mother?”


	5. Chapter Five - Will Gains Wisdom

After what had happened the night before, Will’s mother had insisted that he stay home from school. He’d spent the day trying to see if One really had given him her powers. He already knew that he had her healing ability, and he’d succeeded in making the lights flicker (although that particular experience had reminded him too much of his time trapped in the Upside Down). Then he’d stacked a pile of wood in the backyard and tried to set it on fire, but without success. He looked at his new tattoo again. He just wished he knew what he was supposed to do.  
Mike had come to check on him after school. Will asked him what he’d missed, but all Mike had to say was that he’d gotten in trouble for falling asleep in school again. Will had tried to tell him that he didn’t need to guard someone every single night. As much as Will appreciated Mike being there for him as much as he was, he was tired of everyone being so overprotective of him all the time.  
Maybe, if he could harness One’s powers, everyone would stop treating him like he was made of glass.  
Maybe, if he could harness One’s powers, he wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore.  
He’d tried asking Eleven for advice, but she hadn’t been able to help him much. She’d just told him to concentrate. He’d concentrated until he’d gotten a headache (which his healing power quickly took care of), but he still could not conjure any fire.  
Will still didn’t know how they’d gotten out of that hospital without being spotted, and he still didn’t know what Dustin had said to his mother, or what Mike had said to his father.  
Since Mike was not here, guarding him (something that Will had both appreciated and resented him doing at the same time), Will really hoped that Mike was at home in bed for once. That guy seriously stretched himself too thin.  
Will missed Lucas. He wasn’t sure whether or not he believed the rumours about Lucas and Max, but why else would they have run away? Will, Mike, and Dustin had asked Eleven to try to find them many times over the past few months, but Eleven had said that they were somewhere too far away for her to see. All she had been able to do was reassure them that Lucas and Max were not in the Upside Down. Something inside Will told him that Eleven wasn’t telling the whole truth, but why would she lie about something like this?  
Will had a hard time getting to sleep with all of these thoughts rolling around inside his head, but eventually, sleep did find him.

The next thing Will knew, he was sitting at a metal table in a sterile-looking environment. There was a potted rose bush in front of him, and for some reason, he was trying to burn it. He extended his hands towards it, but nothing was happening.  
But these weren’t his hands.  
This was not his body.  
“I’m trying, Papa!” he said in a choppy voice that was definitely not his.  
There was a man in a lab coat looking down at him in disappointment. Will found himself both fearing this man and wanting to make him proud.  
Suddenly, the room started to get really warm, and the air was starting to get really dry.  
“Four! Stop that!” shouted the lab-coated man.  
Will realized that there was a boy about his own age sitting next to him. It was almost like looking in a mirror, except that this boy had bright green eyes, and his hair had been buzzed off. This boy had 004 tattooed on his wrist, and his nose was bleeding.  
Will felt a surge of fraternal affection for this boy.  
Clearly, these were not his emotions.  
The lab-coated man leaned in and looked Will in the eyes.  
“Now,” he said, “try again.”  
Will extended his hands (that were not his hands) towards the plant again, concentrating as hard as he could. Will really didn’t like that he was trying to burn a living plant. Suddenly, he felt a small surge of power, and some of the leaves started to smoulder.  
“Four!” shouted the lab-coated man again. “Stop helping her!”  
Will suddenly realized that Four had put a hand on his shoulder. Clearly, whatever other powers this boy had aside from changing the temperature of the room, transferring energy was one of them.  
Will wondered if all of Eleven’s siblings had this power (like the light flickering), or if it was just Four.  
Will suddenly noticed that Four looked frightened.  
“Clearly,” said Papa, “you can still only conjure fire when you’re feeling strong emotions, like anger. I think you know what I have to do now.”  
Will felt sick. Somehow, he knew what was coming next.  
“I’m sorry, Four,” said Papa, “I truly am.”  
“Papa, no!” shrieked Will in that voice that was not his.  
Two other men in lab coats suddenly appeared and started to grab Four, who started kicking and screaming.  
Will’s fear suddenly turned into anger, and the rose bush burst into flame…  
…as did the lab coats of the two other men.  
Those two other men screamed and ran out of the room, throwing off their lab coats and leaving Four behind.  
“Bravo, One!” said Papa. “Tomorrow, we will practice your invisibility again.”  
Will looked into Four’s terrified, wild eyes, and suddenly felt sick again.

At that moment, Will woke up.  
What had he just experienced?! He jumped out of bed and started going through his old drawings. He knew he’d seen that boy’s face somewhere before. Finally, he found one that he’d drawn years ago, just after his mother had freed him from the Mind Flayer.  
The picture looked exactly like the boy he had seen in his dream.  
Will could no longer remember why he’d felt so compelled to draw this picture. Had the Mind Flayer planted this image in his subconscious?  
Had the Mind Flayer come in contact with Four?  
Will rushed out of his room. He needed to talk to Eleven.  
Just as he was about to knock on her door, he realized that he could hear her talking. She must have been in the middle of one of her sensory deprivation conversations.  
“Don’t ignore me, Lucas!” came Eleven’s voice from the other side of the door.  
Lucas?  
Will pressed his ear to the door, trying to hear more.  
“Well, if you’re not going to talk to me, then just listen!” said Eleven. “You should never have made me promise never to tell anyone where you were going! At the time, I thought I was keeping you safe by keeping your location hidden! But what if that mouth-breather finds out some other way where you are?! You and Max are all alone out there! You should come home! We can protect you here! Do you realize how worried everyone is about you?! Mike keeps asking me to use my powers to look for you, and I have to lie and tell him that you’re beyond my reach! Sooner or later, he’s going to figure out just how powerful I am! Even if you were on the other side of the world, I still would have been able to find you! I mean, I have a sister in Europe, and I talk to her almost every night!”  
Will backed away from the door and made his way back to his own room. This was crazy! First, he’d seen a face that he’d thought he’d never see again, then he’d gotten attacked by a Demogorgon again, then he’d almost lost Mike, then he’d seen Mike and Dustin miraculously healed, then one of Eleven’s siblings had died giving him her powers, then he’d gotten a glimpse of her life in that laboratory, then he’d seen a face that he had drawn long ago from what he’d thought was his imagination, and now, he’d just found out that Eleven knew where Lucas was and she wasn’t telling anyone!  
Just when Will thought that things couldn’t get any crazier, he suddenly heard a voice inside his head.  
[Hello, Will!]


End file.
